


Good Graces

by CaveDwellers



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: Also some Jaxter if you squint, Daxter is done with everyone's shit and it makes him fighty, Gen, I would NOT want to be the protagonist of a video game that's all I'm saying, Listen I have a lot of feelings right now and they had to go somewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29899062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaveDwellers/pseuds/CaveDwellers
Summary: Ever wonder why Daxter doesn’t seem to make any friends in these games?
Relationships: Daxter & Jak, Jak & Ashelin Praxis, Jak & Sig (Jak and Daxter), Keira Hagai & Jak
Kudos: 13





	Good Graces

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the back half of Jak 3, just before the endgame plot takes over.
> 
> I've been thinking a lot about what the pace of an action-adventure video game would do to a person in real life, particularly at the end of a series. The nonstop pace, the constant missions, how the player-character seems to be the only person in the series who gets anything done... from a gameplay mechanic, it all makes sense, but all of that would take a massive toll on a _person_ , you know?
> 
> Then I heard [Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, by Set it Off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJkj3DgW8Y0) and got a lot of feelings, and this fic was born. 
> 
> Any comments or constructive feedback are fully appreciated!

The call comes in the wee hours of the morning, just as Jak stumbles through the door of his Spargan residence. They should’ve been back hours ago, but the simple task of raiding a newly established marauder encampment by cover of night went sideways, because of course it did.

Kleiver never mentioned the marauders had captured four live metal head beasts (you know, the ones that look like dinosaurs with _guns on their backs)_. Ostensibly, there was no way to know the encampment had clearly sprung up around the enclosure, and the marauders were clearly designing more cages to hold even more metal heads for a clearly premeditated attack on Spargus’ wall.

In the aftermath, when he called a grim Damas to report the allegedly unexpected turn of events, Jak said they were lucky to have caught the marauders this early in their plan.

Daxter ignored the conversation in favor of the shoulder beneath his clawed toes, and how the sturdy muscles quivered with fatigue. He watched the sweat pool in the bags under his best friend’s eyes. This was their second sleepless night in a row, and the second set of nights this week; by all accounts, it’s a miracle Jak is still standing.

After Damas disconnected, Daxter retrieved the green eco pack one of the metal heads unearthed in its rampages, and reminded Jak to drink some damn water. The desert is cool enough at night, but Jak’s still human, and he took out all these enemies single-handedly.

Just because the dark eco can’t kill him doesn’t mean it does him any favors. Every time Jak comes back from being Darkie, he’s just a teeny bit paler, as if the monstrous form is slowly breaking down the barriers that keep it from becoming the default. Jak hides it well enough from everyone else, but there’s no hiding from someone who never leaves your side.

“Don’t they know your office hours?” Daxter says now, as Jak fumbles to answer the ringing communicator. “Send ‘em to voicemail.”

But Jak doesn’t, because he never does. When the muscles in his wrist seize up and the communicator goes flying, he somehow manages to catch it with his other hand and answer Samos’ call anyway.

“There you are, Jak. What took you so long?”

“It’s three in the morning, moss for brains!” Daxter bristles. “Some of us _sleep.”_

Normally, Samos does not give Daxter the time of day, but his eyes narrow behind his magnifying spectacles now. “Oh, I’m sorry, is this devastating war ruining your beauty rest? Shall we tell innocent victims to stop dying so you can have a nap?”

“Now, listen here—”

Samos doesn’t. With a dismissive snort, he refocuses on Jak, who immediately snaps to attention from where he’s been swaying on his feet. “Return to Haven City immediately, Jak. Several Freedom Fighters have been captured by the KG, and we need you to find and free them.”

“All of the standard KG holding cells were destroyed when the palace went down. Where have they been taken?” says Jak.

“That’s where you come in. We don’t have the manpower to go looking for them, but we _need_ their help in this war.”

Daxter can’t help rolling his eyes. Valuable enough to put on the front lines, but not valuable enough to actually look for.

“Where is Torn?” asks Jak. “Normally he’s the one giving these kinds of missions.”

Samos softens. “Torn has been running himself ragged trying to keep everything together. I sent him to rest until you arrive. How soon can you get here?”

It takes every ounce of Daxter’s willpower to keep from shouting the difference between pencil pushing and being under near-constant gunfire, and why the _hell_ was it so simple to recognize that one was exhausting and not the other?

Jak glances at the simple sleeping mat on the floor by the window, and for one moment Daxter hopes he’ll tell the sage no. But then he lets out a long, inaudible breath through his nose and says, “I’ll be there by sunrise.”

“And don’t make any pit stops. The longer these agents are in enemy hands, the greater the danger to them becomes.” Samos terminates the call.

“Jak—” Daxter begins.

“Dax, stop.”

Fun fact: you don’t have to shout at Daxter to shut him up. All it takes is a murmur and a dead-eyed expression of finality. Daxter’s mouth shuts so fast that his teeth click together, something that should not be possible for a carnivorous mammal. There is no arguing with Jak when he is like this, just as there was no protesting every time he accepted whatever the precursors did to him in the heart of every temple. It’s not the white eco itself that disturbs Daxter, it’s the way they talk to him, how _every_ _time_ their gifts are ‘all they have left to give.’

It’s the way Jak’s eyes blaze like a man possessed when they mention they need him, that he is a hero.

Loyalty to Damas, Daxter can understand. Damas is harsh, but he has never lied, and—most importantly—he has embraced Jak as a valued member of his community.

What Daxter can’t understand is why Jak bends over backwards for anyone in Haven City. What could he have to prove to them? What does he possibly think he owes them?

Jak’s gaze lingers on his bed for one last moment before he shakes his head like he’s dispelling an errant thought. Man and ottsel do not speak as the former loads his morph gun with whatever ammo he has stashed in the apartment and leaves again, making a beeline for Kleiver’s vehicle bay because there is apparently no time to wait for the air train.

“I’ll drive,” Daxter says when they load in the sand shark. He springs from Jak’s shoulder and digs out a ration bar from the stash in the compartment under the foot mat. “Eat, catch some Z’s. I’ll wake you when we’re close.”

It isn’t a secret that Daxter can drive. He did it when they were in Haven and winning the racing championship seemed like such a big deal (a laughable concept, now), and he did it before he busted Jak out of prison, when he worked for Kridder Ridder as an exterminator. It’s tricky in these larger vehicles, involving more prehensile tail use than he typically does on a normal day, but the desert is vast, and its vastness is forgiving to a driver who sometimes has to duck below the dash to change gears. He can do it, though, and that’s useful when, say, yet another night of sleep has been pointlessly denied to them.

Just an arbitrary example.

Given Jak’s love of driving, it says a lot that he does not protest. He simply flops into the passenger seat and gnaws on the tough, tasteless protein bar. His eyes are already slipping shut, even as he chews.

Daxter isn’t exactly what you call bright eyed and bushy tailed, but between a running commentary of whatever inconsequential thoughts that comes to mind and the cold night air that whips through the open-air roll cage of the shark, he can keep going. If he’s in really rough shape later, he can curl around Jak’s neck and take a power nap, but he isn’t planning on it.

After all, who else is going to make sure Jak doesn’t get himself killed?

It must be the late hour, because their trip across the desert is so uneventful it’s almost boring. The soft snores coming from the passenger seat echo this sentiment. When Daxter glances over, he sees Jak slumped in the seat with his cheek smeared over his fist as he leans against the passenger door. He is also drooling, and the wind from their high-speed commute is dragging the saliva across his cheek. Daxter wishes he had a camera so he could capture the sight for teasing purposes later. He settles for a grunt of approval. This isn’t even close to what his friend deserves, but it’s better than nothing.

The sun is just taking experimental peeks over the curve of the horizon by the time the spectacular rubble of Haven City comes into view. Daxter nudges Jak awake, and they both ignore the knee-jerk startle, growl, and spark of dark eco as Jak slowly remembers where he is and who’s next to him. Then he hangs his head outside the window so the cold can finish dragging him back into the world of the living.

By the time they roll up to Freedom HQ, Jak’s the one driving, and no one’s any wiser.

It’s Keira who greets them. She’s bleary eyed—clearly fresh from sleep herself—and smiling. If it weren’t for her torn, oil-stained clothes and the ruined city all around them, or the sounds of gunfire just a few blocks over, she might have been transplanted from another time; a relic fresh from a world in which war is not their reality.

Keira has always been like that. No matter how bad things are in the world, she always manages to squick through the misfortune unscathed. In Sandover, she never came close to any of the dangers Jak and Daxter faced. When they were all thrust forward in time, she somehow managed to avoid prison and land a cushy job as a venerated mechanic with her own racing team. Even when they were preparing to defeat Kor, Jak stayed on the ground risking his life to guard her in a hot air balloon while she safely floated away.

“Jak!”

Keira strides forward, aiming for an embrace, but stops abruptly short. Coughing and struggling not to grimace, she says in a pinched voice, “Where have you _been?”_

Daxter is finally acknowledged with an accusatory look and a wordless question of whether he’s the reason Jak reeks of unwashed man and desert-baked viscera. It certainly couldn’t be that Jak hasn’t had the luxury of a restful bath in at least a week.

If her unblemished skin and conspicuously clean hair are indicative of anything, having enough time to wash is clearly not something Keira’s been inconvenienced with.

She’s also too busy blaming Daxter to notice the way that Jak wilts from the rejection. They haven’t had much time together since Kor’s defeat, and the few moments they’ve stolen have been characterized by Jak trying his damnest to once again become the happy, naïve kid from Sandover. Keira is massively uncomfortable with the dark eco inside him, and equally perturbed by the gruff mannerisms and penchant for violence that Praxis beat into him; she’s looking for something in Jak that died in a prison cell, and she can’t understand why it’s not there.

And Jak wants so badly to be accepted by her, because being accepted by someone as impervious to damage as Keira means he’s not irreparably broken.

“Oh, you know how it goes,” says Daxter. His tone should’ve been blithely conversational, since Keira’s supposed to be a longtime friend, and his best pal’s lady, but it comes out as scathing instead. He can’t quite bring himself to care. “Sometimes, when you’re single-handedly keeping two different city states from falling into complete death and destruction, things get a teensy-weensy bit dirty.”

Keira’s pretty features instantly morph into a hard-eyed scowl. “You know, Daxter, you would probably have more friends if you tried being a little nicer.”

Yeah, but to do that he’d have to want to be friends with the people here.

Daxter knows he isn’t perfect, but he deeply resents Keira’s implication that he’s the only problem with this picture.

“Jak, can I talk to you for a minute?” Keira asks. “Alone?”

Daxter can smell the sharp sweat of Jak’s apprehension. He’s not prepared to have a heart to heart right now, not when he’s barely functioning. Nonetheless, his face remains stoic as he gives a little shrug to dislodge Daxter from his shoulder.

Daxter hops to the cracked concrete, but what Keira doesn’t understand is how well ottsels can hear.

“This is really hard for me to bring up,” she says once she and Jak have gone off to the side. Indeed, her arms are wrapped around herself, and she keeps shifting her weight like she is nervous of negative repercussions. “But I feel like you’ve been avoiding Haven, even after we found a way to bring you back. I really feel like we haven’t seen each other much, and that hurts, you know?” Her voice becomes thick as she fights off tears. “I can’t tell if it’s because I’ve done something wrong. You never _talk_ to me, Jak.”

There’s a long, long silence on Jak’s end. Daxter can’t blame him, frankly.

They’re in the middle of a war _,_ and Keira wants to know why Jak isn’t the king of romantic gestures. At this point, Daxter’s nearly impressed. How completely and utterly unsullied by hardship do you have to be, for _this_ to be the worst of your problems?

Fuck, he almost envies that.

“I,” Jak begins, but Daxter can tell he doesn’t have a plan for how to finish the sentence. He’s too exhausted, and too deep in shock to register how Keira saying his best efforts still aren’t enough wounds him. “We—I’ve been… busy.”

If that ain’t the understatement of the year.

It also goes over very, very poorly with the dame. Keira’s head jerks back as if she’s been slapped, and her features crease with hurt and disapproval. “I’ve been busy, too, Jak. We’ve all been busy. But I have been trying to do this right. Why can’t you?” One of her hands slices the air as her insecurities are vaporized by a sudden surge of anger. “Why are we together at all, if you don’t care enough to even try?”

Jak is still as stone, brittle, expression a mask. If Keira touches him right now, he’ll crumble. He’s too overextended to be devastated, and too demoralized to be angry.

Daxter has never been so ready to throttle his best friend’s girlfriend. Keira’s exhibited a truly miraculous series of swings and misses with Jak ever since they found her happily working away at the rift rider a few months ago. She shamed him for the way two years of torture changed him, then punished him for his methods in helping the Underground, all the while sighing over Erol’s racing. And her idea of a good apology was deciding Jak was actually the better racer after all, so let’s kiss and make up. Now this?

Is it that she can’t see how hard Jak’s trying, and how _much_ she and everyone else in this doomed city are constantly asking of him, or does she simply not care?

At what point does the difference between the two become negligible?

They’re all spared from having to continue this zoomer-wreck of a conversation—if it can even be called that—when Ashelin appears.

“I thought I heard your name. Come inside, Jak, I have a mission for you.”

At first Keira looks like she’s going to speak out against Ashelin—but, faced with the older woman’s domineering presence, she quickly loses her nerve. It certainly isn’t because she’s had a change of heart about her complaints, Daxter can see it all over her face.

At least someone can make her see there’s more important things happening right now than her precious feelings.

The relief emanating from Jak is nearly palpable. Ashelin taking charge and giving orders means that he doesn’t have to see how this powwow with Keira ends just yet, and it gives his fatigued brain a sense of purpose where he badly needs one.

“Sorry,” he mutters to Keira as he follows the tall, tattooed woman inside, pausing only for Daxter to leap onto his shoulder. He doesn’t promise to finish the discussion at a later date. Daxter can see Keira’s noticed this detail, as well, and she’s _pissed_ about it.

Serves her right.

Of course, for all that she’s getting Jak’s walking corpse moving, Ashelin’s company isn’t what Daxter would call a huge improvement.

_So the hero I knew did die in the desert, or was it long before that?_

Ashelin will say or do anything to spur Jak into action. Her first priority is and will always be Haven and its longevity, and she assumes that she and Jak are of a mind on this front. (They’re not.)

She also assumes that Jak’s a dedicated soldier she can call into action at any time, for any reason, and that he will always drop whatever he’s doing and come running. (…Actually, she’s right on that front, but not because Jak is loyal to her, specifically. Jak does that for anyone with a big enough set to order him around.)

Finally, Ashelin does not give a kangarat’s ass about how hurt, or damaged, or unwashed and unrested Jak is when she calls him into action. When she says jump, she expects him to ask how high. (Daxter’s pretty sure Ashelin assumes that Jak owes her something, though at this point he can’t imagine what.)

Daxter assumes the late Praxis would be very proud, if news ever got to hell about how tyrannical his daughter turned out. And that’s not a compliment.

They walk into Freedom HQ’s control room with little extra fanfare. Where Ashelin marches, rebels spring to the sides as though she’s the wrong side of a magnet. Those who recognize Jak wave and call after him, but Jak’s too hyperfocused on one foot in front of the other to notice. Daxter waves to the friendly ones on Jak’s behalf, and ignores the rest.

“Alright, hero boy, here’s the deal.” Ashelin slaps her hand against some schematics, and then pauses for a reaction. When she doesn’t get one, she glances up and searches Jak’s face with an air of expectation.

Daxter didn’t grow up the best pal of a kid who only communicated in nonverbal expressions to miss the markers of realization in someone else. Even though Jak stares steadily back, impassively waiting for her to finish her sentence, his lack of reaction to her provocation is a telltale sign that he isn’t okay, and this catches Ashelin’s attention.

Jak has never, not once, asserted that he is a hero. That’s a burden everyone else dumped on him. In this world, being a hero means you do the crap nobody else wants to do. It means you become everyone’s favorite errand boy who can never do their dirty work well enough, because you’re also their scapegoat.

Ashelin’s already proven she’s got no qualms letting Jak take the fall for her. Oh, sure, she thinks she made up for it by giving Jak that old Spargan beacon, and Daxter will readily say that Spargus is the best thing that’s happened to Jak in this future hellscape, but Daxter knows she’ll order Jak take the fall for her again and again if she has to, and that puts her on his shit list.

Jak’s squared shoulders and unflinching gaze lend him an air of collectedness, and Ashelin certainly doesn’t know him well enough to notice how deeply fractured he is behind all of that. But she’s picked up that he’s not in peak condition, and they just told her they’re already busy. That should be enough.

If she cares about Jak at all, now would be the time to prove it, to give this mission to someone—anyone—else.

“We received a supply drop from an ally outside the city,” she says instead, and Daxter will never forgive her for it. “But the shipment was swarmed by metal heads. I need you to reclaim the truck and escort it back to HQ, and I needed this done yesterday.”

“Oh, is that so, sweetheart?” Daxter grins lasciviously and makes a point of staring right down her cleavage. “Well, sorry to say, toots, but you’re going to have to get in line, because old grandpa moldyface already has us rescuing your idiot agents that got captured by the KG.” He props his elbow on crown of Jak’s head and rests his chin in his paw as he croons, “Is there any part of this organization that isn’t dripping with incompetence? Like, any part at all? Maybe the janitorial service?”

Ashelin looks ready to lunge forward and snap his neck with her bare hands. It’s a rare day when Daxter manages to debase someone while simultaneously calling them and everything they love a useless dung heap. He bats his eyelashes at her before sneaking another peek down her shirt. If she doesn’t like having those knockers looked at, she should have covered ‘em up.

And if she doesn’t like being provoked, she should’ve thought twice before ordering his best friend out on a mission that will probably get him killed.

Daxter is saved from being murdered by the tattooed Amazon when Jak grinds out, “Send me the coordinates. I’ll get your shipment back.”

It takes Ashelin several seconds to make the emotional U-turn required by this acceptance. With a last lingering glare at Daxter, her stern features smooth out as she refocuses on Jak. “Good. I’m trusting you to get this done, Jak. Don’t let me down.”

Jak doesn’t reply to this. He’s already on route to the armory, where he can top off on ammo and grab some green eco, if there is any (there isn’t; there never is). Daxter sees him moving on autopilot as he loads his morph gun, methodically reorganizing clips so he uses up the half-empty ones first to clear out space for any more he might pick up along the way. Daxter sees him doing the arithmetic in his head, prioritizing missions and balancing personalities, fenagling the way to please every greedy asshole who demands too much of him. Forcing himself to choose what’s more important to the Freedom Fighters: supplies, or manpower.

The nap on the drive to Haven ensured that Jak no longer sways or quivers with fatigue, but there ain’t enough hours in the day to save the lines of weariness that are carving themselves into his face.

“Drink something, pal,” Daxter murmurs, thumping his tail between Jak’s shoulder blades. “It’s been a while.”

Jak wordlessly obliges. He doesn’t swipe away the trickle of water that missed his lips and trails down his chin, leaving a noticeable streak in the grit and dust on his skin. His eyes are dull and far away. Is he even in there right now?

“When all this is over, I’m gonna sleep for at least two weeks straight,” Daxter declares with an exaggerated yawn. “Or maybe two months—what do you think, should we make it three?”

There is a heartbreakingly long pause as this dialogue percolates, and then, haltingly, “Make it years.”

Something in Daxter twists painfully. Jak’s in there. He’s a long, long way down, but he’s there.

He whoops all the same. “Now you’re talking!”

He only wishes he could do more to lift his best buddy up.

They are just about finished in the armory when Jak’s communicator starts ringing. It isn’t the coordinates from Ashelin—those are already in, and were only announced with a beep. This is an incoming call.

“What _now?”_ groans Daxter as Jak answers. “Can’t anyone in this crappy future do anything on their own?”

“I heard that, chili pepper.”

“Can’t help that it’s true. Do you think it’s something in the water?”

“Hey, Sig,” says Jak. Daxter is heartened to hear a genuine fondness in his voice, even the hints of a smile dimpling his cheeks. “What do you need?”

“What do _I_ need?” The big man is giving what he can see of Jak a critical onceover with his good eye. “It looks like _you_ could use a nice long nap, cherry.”

For the first time in what feels like years, something in Daxter warms up. _Finally._

“That’s what I’ve been saying all day!” he cries, pushing Jak’s face out of the way so he can put himself in frame. “Sig, please tell Jak that he looks like a walking corpse and he needs to have some R and R.”

It’s hard to read Sig’s expressions, since so much of his face is frozen by cybernetics. Daxter’s best guess is that the grizzled warrior is considering, but he wouldn’t bet on it.

“I can’t do that,” Jak says without fighting the fuzzy hand pushing at his cheek. “If I don’t act now, people will die.”

“So let me ask you this, cherry: what happens if you’re killed trying to keep them from dying?”

“Is the answer to let them all die without even trying?”

Sig pauses, and then asks, “Want help?”

This stops both man and ottsel dead in their tracks. Daxter lets Jak straighten his neck as they look at one another, utterly gobsmacked.

“But… weren’t you calling me because you wanted something?”

“Yeah, but it sounds like you’re on a tight schedule and running on fumes, cherry. I’d rather you rest up before coming with me, and it sounds like getting this done is the only way through. So,” Sig says with more patience than Daxter thought the big wastelander even possessed. “Want help?”

Daxter’s first instinct is to shout _please_ , but he isn’t the one who needs convincing.

Jak has stalled out. He’s staring at the man on the other side of the communicator as if he’s never seen another person before, his exhausted brain laboring to put two and two together. He flashes Daxter a wide-eyed look that borders on panic, silently asking if this is even allowed.

Out of frame, Daxter gently nudges him. _Go on, it’s okay._

“Yes.” The answer sounds more like a question than it should, but it’s an affirmative.

It’s all Sig needs to hear. He nods and says, “I’m less than an hour away. Don’t start without me!”

The call ends. Jak’s movements are wooden as he clips his communicator back to his belt. He can’t believe his good luck.

“I like him,” Daxter decides. “We should make more friends like that.”

It’s another thing that takes a long, long time to sink in. “Yeah,” Jak says finally. The word sounds like it sits strange on his tongue—like he _means_ this acquiescence in a way he has not meant any of the others he’s voiced today.

Good. Daxter doesn’t care how long it takes, so long as Jak finally registers that there’s a difference between this conversation and all the others.

“Yeah.” Then he flops over the top of Jak’s crown of greasy, dirty hair. “And the sooner we can do all this crap, the sooner we can go home!”

It’s reflex to bat Daxter off of his head, but when Jak speaks, it’s much delayed, and only after they’ve left Freedom HQ and started hoverboarding their way to the edge of the city, where they will send Sig coordinates to meet up with them. Daxter barely hears it for the wind rushing through his ears, but when he does, the mutter above his head gives him hope that the boy he would do anything for is going to make it through this war.

“Find the guys, deliver the shipment, go home, sleep for three years.”

 _Yeah, babe_ , Daxter thinks. _That’s a good start._

**Author's Note:**

> I should also mention that the sexual harassment exhibited by Daxter, and the use of the term 'knockers', is actually not reflective of my own opinions and values. 😂


End file.
